


Black and White

by cjmarlowe



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Frottage, M/M, Wartime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-07
Updated: 2014-02-07
Packaged: 2018-01-11 11:55:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1172779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cjmarlowe/pseuds/cjmarlowe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one is going to look at this picture and think anything of it, but Steve remembers the moment it was taken and he remembers what he was thinking, that he was the luckiest sonofabitch who ever lived, not because of who he was or who he'd become, but because he had Bucky. Because Bucky was his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black and White

Someone hands it to him right when they're stumbling back into camp, bone tired and keeping their heads held high through force of will alone. Some clipping from a newspaper. Steve nods his head and holds onto it and carries on, right at the end of his reserves though he thinks it's more the emotional toll than the physical one that has him wanting to press his face into a pillow and close his eyes and drift into a pleasant nothingness for a little while. He doesn't get nightmares very often, which is probably a blessing bestowed on him by the serum and the improvements it made to his mental processing because he remembers that he certainly used to. It's as useful an alteration as any of the others.

He stashes the clipping in his pack and forgets all about it till the next day when Bucky comes into his tent and wakes him up while trying steal his soap.

"What's this," says Bucky, standing there in a pair of torn and cut off pants as he unfolds it. Only when a couple of pieces of newsprint slip to the ground does Steve realize it was a little stack of clippings, not just one.

"I was sleeping," he says, as much of an answer as he can muster at the moment. "And I need that soap."

"I know," says Bucky. "That's why I was putting it back."

That's when Steve makes the secondary realization that Bucky's hair is in fact already wet, and therefore Steve has slept a lot longer than he meant to. "Did I sleep through...?"

"Like a log," says Bucky. "And before you say anything, I told the troops that anybody waking you before you got up yourself was going to have to answer to me. You think I don't know that you walked in here with a good half dozen broken ribs last night? Just because you don't need a medic doesn't mean your body doesn't need a solid twelve hours to fix that kind of damage."

" _Twelve hours_?"

"Don't you fight me on this."

Steve was going to, because he's supposed to be the one in command, but instead he says, "Thanks," and internally admits that his body does actually have to restore itself from time to time. The ribs aren't even that tender this morning, thanks to a top notch immune system that still nearly brings him to tears when he thinks about it. "I'm...hungry."

"Painfully hungry?" said Bucky. "Or the kind of hungry that you can sit on for a little while?"

He's pretty hungry, but he's also definitely gone without for longer than this and suffered no long-term effects. "I could wait," he says. "Why?"

"Because the benefit of having threatened the lives of everyone who even thought about coming near here before you decided to show your face," says Bucky, "is that we've got a little time to ourselves."

He stacks the newspaper clippings up again and brings them over to the side of the cot, sitting down on the edge of it where there's a space left by the curl of Steve's body. 

"Who gave these to you?" he says as they finally take a look.

"I...don't know," Steve admits, and usually he'd be able to go back through his memories and call up the face, or at least some other identifying detail, but he's not actually superhuman and he'd been running on fumes when he'd collapsed onto the cot last night. Nothing comes to mind at all.

The pictures were clipped from the papers back home, from New York, carefully folded and mailed overseas to someone in their camp. Steve really wishes he remembered who.

"They think we're some kind of heroes," says Bucky. "For real."

That isn't what Steve is looking at. Ever since he was dubbed Captain America he'd gotten too much attention from the press and the movies and everybody else who wanted a figurehead and not a soldier. These were good pictures, good solid journalistic work, and in the third one his own hand was placed firmly at the small of Bucky's back. No one was going to look at this picture and think anything of it. But Steve remembers that moment and he remembers what he was thinking during it, that he was the luckiest sonofabitch who ever lived, not because of who he was or who he'd become, but because he had Bucky. Because Bucky was his.

Steve does the same thing now, places a hand on Bucky's back, skin soft and clean.

"They make it look so neat and easy," he says, pausing on that picture same as Steve. "Nobody wants to see what it really takes to get the job done."

"And if we do our jobs right, they'll never have to," says Steve. War shouldn't look easy, but if he can spare a whole lot of people the things he's had to see, he will, and he'll do it with no regrets. "Guess someone thought we'd like to see something from home."

"Someone thought _you'd_ like to see something from home," says Bucky. "Captain America."

"Don't," says Steve, ducking his head as he runs his hand lightly over Bucky's lower back. "Not you."

"Okay, Steve," says Bucky, getting up and putting the pictures back where he found them, right at the top of Steve's things. Steve's hand lingers in mid-air till Bucky comes back, sitting sideways this time so that Steve's hand comes to rest at his waist.

When Bucky leans down to kiss him, it's not a surprise to either of them. "Did I mention the part where no one's gonna dare disturb you till you decide to let them know you're up and about?"

"I vividly remember that part of the conversation," says Steve. "So I guess we're going to see if you've figured out how to be quiet yet."

" _One_ slip up and you're gonna remind me about it forever," says Bucky, laughing softly and kissing him again. He turns right onto his side as he does, finally stretching out and forcing the cot to hold two. They build 'em strong, though. It'll hold.

"Jim thought you were _in pain_ ," says Steve. "He was coming to _help_."

"Quit it," says Bucky, kissing him for as long as it takes to shut him up. Steve still stops to marvel sometimes, at what his body can do that he never could've dreamed of before; this time he marvels at just how long he can go without breathing.

He went to sleep in just an undershirt and a pair of shorts, shucking everything that was on top and leaving it in an untidy pile that...apparently someone cleaned up while he was sleeping. He hopes it was Bucky. And Bucky, well, Bucky just climbed onto the bed with him in nothing but his shorts, so it's not going to take them much effort to get it off, if that's where this heads.

Kisses are easy to steal. Intimate touches here and there. But stretches of prolonged privacy are rare and precious.

Bucky starts pushing Steve's shirt up with both hands and Steve takes it the rest of the way, pulling it over his head and dropping it aside so that they're skin to skin. Steve's still filthy. Bucky's going to want to shower again after this. But he doesn't seem to be thinking about that at all as he presses their bodies together, moves against Steve in a comfortable undulation, one that Steve starts to match. They're both quiet, all too aware of what little barrier the cloth of the tent actually provides. The smoother and slower the movements, the less noise they're going to make.

Bucky murmurs something that Steve can't make out, but then he's not sure Bucky was actually making words at all, maybe he was just making what sounds he dared, something that could be mistaken for muffled conversation. Or maybe there really are words he's stifling, that he doesn't want to say when they're like this. He kisses Steve again, so much smoother now than their very first time, when they'd both been a little frantic and a little afraid and a little uncertain of where anything between them stood anymore.

"I want the rest," Bucky says, softly against Steve's ear, and it's hard to mistake his meaning. They part only far enough to kick their shorts off, leaving them tangled together at the end of the cot at their feet, as Steve throws the thin blanket over them. They aren't cold, but it will muffle sound too. They can move together beneath it, still slow, still steady.

Steve laces the fingers of one hand with Bucky's, the other arm laying across the cot over their heads. It creaks slightly, but nothing that shifting in his sleep wouldn't do. His cock is pressed side by side with Bucky's as they move, rubbing up against one another. He wants to say something, something meaningful, but every way in which they're touching says it better than any of Steve's words ever could. The serum might've given him the body of a minor god, but it did very little for his verbal skills.

Bucky looks him in the eye and holds them there, like he's trying to say something too without ever having to say it. Steve has never loved anyone like he loves this man. Other than his mother, he's never really loved anyone else at all, as long as he's lived; it's always been Bucky, in one way or another. They don't have to say it to know it's true. Finally Bucky closes his eyes and parts his lips and Steve knows what that means, leans in to start kissing him again because he wants to be kissing when they come. He wants every part of their bodies to be touching every other part it can, from their feet to their cocks to their lips to their fingertips, hands clutching each other tightly.

When Bucky makes a sound this time, it's into Steve's mouth and it's barely audible, he feels it more as a vibration. Steve moves his hips harder but not faster, grinding them together. When Bucky comes he feels it as heat against his belly, running down over his cock and then further, between his legs. He gasps into Bucky's mouth at the surprising shock of arousal that sends through him, and though he doesn't dare grind harder, not with Bucky already heading towards oversensitivity, he does dare to go faster, just a few hard jerks at _just_ the right angle that he knows will get him off.

He bites Bucky's lower lip when he comes, and at least has the presence of mind to make sure he doesn't draw blood. It's going to be a little swollen, but then with Bucky's lips, who's gonna notice?

When he draws back Bucky's still got his eyes closed but he's smiling at him, and Steve can't help but kiss him one more time before anyone is ready to say anything at all.

"Worth every second of the wait," says Bucky. 

They're going to be stuck together in the most awkward places if they don't move soon, but they still wait as long as they can. Steve is warm and comfortable and for a few moments he can imagine spending every night like this, with Bucky in his arms. He knows it's never going to be that easy, army or no army, war or no war, but he dreams it anyway. When they win this whole thing, maybe he can have everything he ever wanted. That's what freedom is all about, isn't it?

"You need to shower again," says Steve, running his fingers through Bucky's hair. He's still holding Bucky's hand with his other, both of them reluctant to let go.

"Nah," says Bucky. "I'll wipe down before I leave the tent. Got my towel after all. No one's expecting it to come back pristine around here."

"Next time we're in London I'll get a room that's just us," says Steve.

"Being Captain America's got to have some perks, right?"

"Being Steve Rogers has even more," he says.

When Bucky finally gets up, first sitting on the edge of the cot again then stretching and standing up and rummaging under the blanket to retrieve what little clothing he came in with, Steve pushes the covers back and surveys the mess he's made of them. The commandos really were in rough shape when they stumbled in last night. Or at least, Steve was. Today there are reports to make and people to assemble and future raids to plan, but first he has this. He reaches up and lays his hand on the small of Bucky's back again, and Bucky looks back over his shoulder and smiles.

"How do I look?"

"Like the cat that ate the canary," says Steve, shaking his head at him. "At least nobody's expecting your hair to be combed, just washed like that."

"Small blessings," says Bucky. "I'll see you in the mess?"

Miracle of miracles, Bucky really did make Steve forget just how hungry he is, but the moment he mentions it, Steve's stomach is rebelling again. "I just need a few minutes," he says.

Bucky salutes him, a mock salute but strangely respectful all the same, and looks like he wants to come back to the cot, but he doesn't let himself, turning and slipping out of the tent again. 

Steve rousts himself out of the bed, feels around at his tender, formerly broken ribs and finds them only faintly sore even now, and rummages around in his pack for a fresh uniform. Even if he's not clean yet, he should be presentable. The newspaper clippings fall out first. He takes a moment to go through them again, pausing on the picture of him and Bucky. The other two go back in with his things but that one Steve folds up carefully and stashes with his gear, the stuff that goes out with him every time the commandos leave camp.

Food first, then cleaning himself up, then whatever else the day brings. Memory had never been one of Steve's shortcomings, but he's still glad it's all the sharper now, because he can relive these rare moments with Bucky in perfect detail as often as he likes. Even at the worst of times, he always has that.


End file.
